Teacher Orientation Resources

Once more - THANK YOU to everyone who was able to participate in a Teacher Orientation in person or by phone. We appreciate you making time for us and hope you found the session helpful!



As promised, I am sharing the resources we gathered from our Advisory Committee members and hope you will find them useful as you roll out Poetry Out Loud this year. We know many of you are also very experienced POL Coordinators so if you have resources of your own you'd like me to share with the group please send them over by email and I will update the list below.

Resource from Jason Lambert, CONVAL Regional High School

Resource 1 from Gordon Lang, Kingswood Regional High School

Resource 2 from Gordon Lang, Kingswood Regional High School 

Resources from Susan McClellan, Hopkinton Middle High School 
Resource from Amy Usinger, Coe-Brown Northwood Academy

Meme Generator
Meme Generator

Thanks and best, and wishing you all good luck with this year's program! 

Caitlin

Special Message from Cynthia Robinson

 NH Poetry Out Loud's previous coordinator penned this greeting to share...

"Hello POL teachers! Miss you all, and hope you're well! As I was talking with Alexandra today about semifinals and finals processes, I was reflecting on how very hard it is to predict the judging outcome. Some of you will remember that I did some digging into the data to discover how the points shake out. I had been under the impression that it was the Dramatic appropriateness score that was the X factor, but found it really was a combination of ALL of the criteria. Accuracy certainly counts big, but there really was no one criteria or judging point that consistently makes the difference between the top scores and the low scores. To me, this is a good thing, even though it makes the preparation hard. What it means is that your students DO need to prepare the whole package! To feel the poem, become the poem, know it cold, and express it clearly and confidently! And then....each presentation is received by a group of human judges, whose responses can not be completely predicted! At some point in the process students must let go of their own experience of the poem, and allow their audience to have their own experience of the presentation. The joy of POL is that it's all good! They are all already champions for taking that first step to share their poem with even just one person. Very best to you all. I hope to make it to a semifinal or the finals this year- always such a joy to feel the students' excitement for their poems! Cynthia

Regional Semi-Final Dates Confirmed!

Congratulations to the 41 schools who will be participating in NH Poetry Out Loud this year!  A full list of schools can be found on our website at:  www.nh.gov/nharts/programservices/POL/2015/

We are delighted to have four wonderful partners hosting our regional competitions in March:  Jean’s Playhouse on March 2^nd, NH Institute of Art on March 3^rd, Southern NH University on March 5^th and New England College on March 9^th.    Participating schools will receive notification of their assigned semi-final location this week.   Please call us with any questions!  Or email us at nhpol.coordinator@gmail.com.   Please remember to submit date of your in-school competition to us by December 5th and join us for Teachers Orientation on November 20^th or 24^th.

 

Writing Contests for NH Students

We are delighted to share three wonderful opportunities for NH students to participate in writing contests in the coming year.  Please share with you classes and colleagues.

NH Citizens for the Arts Essay Contest
Submission period: January 1 – March 15, 2015 Topic: “Why do the arts need to be in society?” Information at http://nhcfa.org/scholarship.html

Poetry Society of New Hampshire Contest
Submission deadline: April 30, 2015 Information at: http://poetrysocietyofnewhampshire.org/contest.html

Center for the Book: Letters about Literature Contest
A national contest from with the Library of Congress
Level 3 entries must be postmarked by 12-15-14
Levels 1 and 2 must be postmarked by 1-15-15
Information at: http://www.read.gov/letters/.html

Poetry Out Loud "Sizzle Reel"

Check out and share the attached video of the national Poetry Out Loud competition. It will absolutely generate buzz and build excitement for your school competition and the NH finals. Get involved in Poetry Out Loud! Be sure to visit www.poetryoutloud.org for other promotion and curriculum tips. And register today for the NH Poetry Out Loud Teacher Orientation on November 20th or 24th. Thank you for being a part of NH Poetry Out Loud.

Teacher Orientations

Registration is now open for NH POL Teacher Orientations - November 20th and 24th in Concord. Please register on Survey Monkey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KB5L833. Teacher's Guides and other materials will be available at this meeting. Teacher's Guides can also be downloaded at http://www.poetryoutloud.org/. We look forward to seeing you in November!

Welcome to Poetry Out Loud 2014-2015

Greetings NH Poetry Out Loud Fans! Registration is now open for 2015 NH Poetry Out Loud - the 10th Anniversary of Poetry Out Loud in our state and in the nation. We will start to post helpful materials and information here and on the NH State Council for the Arts website. We have a tentative date set for our NH POL State Finals, March 13, 2015 at the State House, Representatives’ Hall and Virginia Prescott, from NH Public Radio has agreed once again to serve as our MC (snow date on Monday, March 16). I am Alexandra Urbanowski and am delighted to be working this year as the new NH Poetry Out Loud Coordinator, in collaboration with my colleague Caitlin Delaney. Together we will work to be a resource for you and all those involved and make all the events and activities run smoothly. Caitlin and I are members of Portsmouth-based Opus Advisors (www.opusadvisorsllc.com) where we provide assistance to arts organizations and nonprofits across NH and beyond in communications, strategic planning, and fundraising. We bring our passion for theatre arts, poetry and the arts in education to NH Poetry Out Loud. Please contact us at anytime with your questions at NHPOL.Coordinator@gmail.com. We look forward to meeting you soon!

Congratulations and Thanks to All!

The NH Poetry Out Loud state finals took place on Monday, March 17th at the NH State House, and what a night it was!

The audience was welcomed by an eloquent State Representative, who then turned over the reins to Master of Ceremonies Virginia Prescott, host of NHPR’s “Here and Now.” Prescott has been the MC for the Poetry Out Loud State finals for a number of years now and clearly enjoys the job.

But what’s not to enjoy? Our twelve finalists from around the state were uniformly superb. At the end of the evening, though, a new state champion was determined: Hannah Burke, from Jesse Remington High School in Candia. Alternate champion is Dessaline Etienne from Goffstown High School.

Hannah will travel to Washington, DC, on April 28th to compete in the national competition with 52 other champions from all the US states and territories. Best of Luck Hannah!

Brush Up Your Poetry!

Last year for the first time, we offered a one-day clinic for all NH school champions and alternate champions. We brought in professionals to lead workshop sessions with an eye to improving students’ performances at the semi-final and final Poetry Out Loud competitions, and as a way of introducing kids to one another and building a sense of camaraderie.

The event was such a success that we have committed to doing it again this year!

“Brush up your Poetry: a Recitation Workshop for NH Poetry Out Loud Champions” will take place at Holderness School in Holderness, NH (near Plymouth), from 2PM to 5PM on Sunday, February 23rd (snow date, Saturday, February 22nd—strange, but true). We have lined up some wonderful workshop leaders(including Rodger Martin, Jason Lambert, and NH Poet Laureate Alice Fogel!) and will provide light refreshments. Parents who drive their kids to Holderness can take advantage of shopping and cafés in nearby Plymouth. Teachers who attend are welcome to observe workshop sessions.

We’ll send out more information to each of our participating schools, but we hope you’ll put the date on your calendar right away! See you there!